lively kid and all right, although he had never put in any time as a
trapper or a bee hunter. I said, "Smoky, can you see a bee fly?"
Smoky said that he thought he could, for he knew that he could tell
when one stung him, but he had never watched to see how far he could
see one fly.

I found that Smoky was given to making comical remarks as well as to
smoking. I said, "Smoky, what day can you go?" He replied, "Any day."
This was on Tuesday, so I said, "Alright, Smoky, be here Thursday and
we will start early Friday morning."

Smoky said, "Alright, but we will not get a darn thing while we are
gone if we go on Friday unless we get drowned, and there will have to
be more water in the creek than there is now or we won't get that
much."

I had already made application to the State Tourist Commissioner for
a permit to camp on state lands. It may be well to state here for the
benefit of those who wish to so camp in this state (Pennsylvania) that
the authorities will not give a permit to camp for a longer time than
14 days. In my case they were very obliging and made out the papers
for several applicants of 14 days each, so that it would only have
been necessary to have signed one of the applications and send it on
a few days before the previous application had expired.

[Illustration: WOODCOCK FISHING ON THE SINNAMAHONING.]

We were all ready to start Friday morning. Our route lay over the
mountains a distance of about 20 miles from the head waters of the
Allegheny to the head water of the west branch of the Susquehana
waters, known as the East Fork of the Sinnamahoning. We pitched our
tent just at the point where the Buffalo and Susquehana Railroad
begins to cross the divide, known as the Hogback, by means of several
switch backs. It is a splendid sight to see two or three trains
working their way up the mountain's side on a clear, frosty morning,
when the steam and smoke show so plain.

We did not get the tent in good shape for the first night, nor did we
get our bunk up, owing to its being so late when we got to our
camping ground. The first night in camp we had a sharp frost and in
the morning Smoky Jim's fever for camping had dropped fully one-half.
He complained that any one that would go into such a country to camp
should be reported for trespassing on the rights of the porcupine.

It took until the third day to get our camp in good shape. We built a
skeleton frame of small poles all over the tent, leaving a